When do I refresh DoT's? (Affliction)

The more exact question is, when do I refresh DoT's in regards to Dark Soul/trinket/enchant procs?

I ask this because I know my damage is below where it should be and I believe it has to do with how and when I re-apply my DoT's. I've been researching the spec for, well, the bulk of the expansion. The issue is that different sources provide different information. Noxxic, for instance, suggests manually refreshing all DoT's when a proc occurs. (They don't mention Pandemic which leads me to believe they want the DoT's updated regardless of time left.) Meanwhile a thread on icy-veins clearly states that I should update my DoT's manually AFTER they pass the Pandemic point. The same thread says I should then use SB-SS to reapply the DoT's right before the proc ends, regardless of time left on the DoT's. And elitist-jerks is oddly devoid of any guides for Affliction Locks so far this expansion.

As you can see the various sources are contradictory at best. Does anyone have a definitive answer to this?

There is no definitive answer to your question. It all depends on how strong your dots are buffed at the moment when you get new buffs.

If you just constantly refresh when you get buffs you lose an aweful amount of MG uptime and possibly shards (if you use SB:SS), so that doesn't work. NOT refreshing for ANY buffs, but only refreshing when your dots are running out of time will mean you could completely miss buffs, which is obviously also bad.

The answer is somewhere in between, which is why the Affdots addon is so valuable to us, and why I'd recommend using it. It can tell you exactly how strong your current dots are, and if it's worth it to overwrite them (taking Pandemic into account).

There is no definitive answer to your question. It all depends on how strong your dots are buffed at the moment when you get new buffs.

If you just constantly refresh when you get buffs you lose an aweful amount of MG uptime and possibly shards (if you use SB:SS), so that doesn't work. NOT refreshing for ANY buffs, but only refreshing when your dots are running out of time will mean you could completely miss buffs, which is obviously also bad.

The answer is somewhere in between, which is why the Affdots addon is so valuable to us, and why I'd recommend using it. It can tell you exactly how strong your current dots are, and if it's worth it to overwrite them (taking Pandemic into account).

Wholeheartedly agree with your entire post except for the bold section. You have to set the threshold for when to change the color to tell you to swap dots over regardless of pandemic, and it doesn't tell you if you have another good int proc coming in the next few seconds (hence we still need to be aware rather than just following what AffDots says). The addon is beautiful and you should definitely try it if you haven't.

When to refresh regardless of pandemic, and how, is a question that's pretty thoroughly discussed in the "affliction warlock and encounter specific guides" thread stickied up top. The answers are not definitive, but more of a "best known practice" since modeling and mathing out decisions for updating dots is, frankly, really complicated.